


Kangaroo Court

by Tarlan



Category: Survivors (2008 TV)
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, Character Study, Community: smallfandomfest, Explicit Language, F/M, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-01
Updated: 2011-01-01
Packaged: 2017-10-14 07:38:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/146931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the plane carries him away, Tom reflects on his feelings for the group and especially for Anya...and Greg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kangaroo Court

**Author's Note:**

> Written for **smallfandomfest** FEST08

He had told himself that he stayed because he was in love with Anya but it was pretty clear that she wasn't in love with him and never would be. His dick would have to fall off first. Yeah, she'd given him a pity fuck or two but he could tell that her heart wasn't in it, that she was looking for a woman's curves and breasts rather than a man's musculature and, yeah, a man's dick rather than some strap-on or whatever lesbians used to get off when there wasn't a real dick around.

Thing is, he liked his dick and if he was to be brutally honest with himself then he had to admit that he liked other men's dicks too. That was one of the few things he had learned from a few short stays in prison, though he had learned it the hard way and had refused to make it easy on anyone trying to make him their bitch. A Glasgow Kiss usually put the idea out of some other inmate's head. After all, it was hard to get it up when you had blood gushing from a broken nose. It hadn't stopped him from experimenting with an all too willing cell mate, learning how to fuck and suck in silence, with barely a rustle of the blankets to give the game away.

But that was prison where the supply of female bodies to alleviate a man's needs was part of the punishment. The world outside should have been teeming with willing female partners, but the plague had wiped out most of the population. He'd strung Sarah along for a while and she'd been willing enough to please him but, again, it hadn't been out of love. In his eyes she had been little more than a prostitute, selling her body to the highest bidder for security and food. She'd moved on to Al and Tom had been mean enough to try to spoil their happiness when they started playing at engagements and commitments. He shouldn't have bothered though, and the guilt of watching her die while trapped in that plague house still ate at him. She had shown a side of herself that Tom had refused to notice--a selfless, self-sacrificing streak that saw her to her death bed.

Nothing good came out of Sarah's death, except for Al volunteering to try that vaccine. Grief had a way of fucking with a man's mind and giving him a death wish. Survivor's guilt. Al had survived being infected with a virulent new strain of the influenza virus so at least there was a chance that the rest of them could survive the mutations to the plague now.

Sarah Bowyer.

He remembered the feel of Anya in his arms as they grieved for her together; recalled biting down hard to keep silent as he thrust deep inside her. Yeah. Nothing good came out of Sarah's death except for the vaccine. Getting what he wanted only proved that Anya wasn't what he needed.

What he couldn't figure out was why he stayed, and why he was still protecting the group when it was clear he had no future with Anya beyond the basic needs of group survival. She was a doctor, able to save lives, and he was the equivalent of a bodyguard or soldier, doing the dirty work of taking lives to protect the others even at the cost of what was left of his humanity. It was almost laughable that on one hand they could condemn him for his actions, telling him that he could change and be more than just a killer and a thief, and then they turned around and expected him to _ease the suffering_ of some guy dying in agony in a field.

He'd done it though, because it was the right thing to do. He'd held his hand over the man's mouth and nose and pressed down hard, only looking down into those dead eyes once the job was done. And Anya had looked at him with such gratitude afterwards.

Fucking hypocritical bitch.

Tom let his head drop onto his chest. He could feel the vibrations of the plane jarring his injury. The blood was pooling on the floor beneath his hand despite his attempt to staunch the blood loss from the through-and-through bullet wound in his shoulder. His life was one fucked up joke after another. First for believing he was in love with a lesbian and then for getting shot by Abby's teenage son. Though what was more fucked up was that he recognized the kid as one of those he'd set free from the back of Billy's lorry. At least he had seen Abby reunited with her son on the runway before he stowed on board the plane.

The plane hit an air pocket and Tom groaned as the pain reverberated through him. The only thing keeping him conscious was his determination to make Landry pay for his part in destroying the world, except he'd even fucked that up. He could feel himself slipping into unconsciousness, with the gun growing heavy in his hands.

He blinked open his eyes and saw the whiteness of a ceiling above his head instead of the fuselage of the airplane, and cursed under his breath. Willpower hadn't been enough to keep him conscious after all. His wrists and ankles were shackled to the bed and he could see the IV feeding blood and plasma into him. His shoulder felt numb but he was astute enough to realize that it wouldn't stay that way if he started to move or tense the muscles. A glance around showed he was in sealed up in a quarantine room, which was understandable under the circumstances. Landry's people had never been exposed to the virus that had wiped out practically everyone else on the planet, and they'd not want to take a risk now, not even with the vaccine.

"Your little group has caused me a lot of trouble."

"What? More trouble than killing billions of people?"

"Touche. I'll admit that we made a terrible mistake and there is nothing we can do to rectify that. But destroying those we saved is not going to bring back the billions, Mr. Price. Yes. I know who you are. And what you are."

"You know nothing about me."

"Samantha Willis. She had a lot to say about you."

Tom thought about the self-appointed leader of the new provisional government. He snorted softly. Despite all her talk she was just a petty dictator, sentencing to death anyone she didn't like. She had used him to get rid of one of her enemies, making a pact to set him free on condition that he kill Dexter, telling him exactly where to go to find the nasty piece of shit. He'd done as she asked more than willingly, having already marked Dexter as a dead man. But then Willis had captured and condemned Tom openly, putting him through the farce of a trial where she had already determined the outcome would be life in slavery no matter the verdict. Yeah, she knew all about the slavery in the coal mine, and he wondered how many of the people condemned to that living hell had been sent to Smithson by one of her Kangaroo Courts.

"Willis is a dangerous woman."

"I am aware. But the woman had her uses until a few days ago. Now we have the vaccine, we can start to rebuild properly, and there will be no place for someone like Samantha Willis."

"So I guess you'd be better. A mass murderer. Someone who was prepared to kidnap and torture innocent people to get that vaccine...even a kid."

"Doctor Whitaker's actions were reprehensible...but unfortunately, they were necessary if we were to find the vaccine."

"Yeah. Least I don't make excuses for what I do." Tom sneered back at the self-righteous prick. "So what do you plan to do with me?"

"Why...Nothing. I'm going to let you go because, as crude as you are, there is a place for someone like you at this time." Landry smiled. "I want you to go back and do what you do best, Mr. Price. Protect Abby Grant and her son, Peter."

"In case the vaccine fails."

"No. We've already tested it. It won't fail. I want you to protect the Grants because their unique immune system is worth preserving." Landry walked away but turned after a few steps. "Oh, and tell Mr. Preston that his ex-wife and his two children were among those transported to safety, so it is in his best interests to bury the knowledge of our existence until we are able to vaccinate all of our people."

The door closed quietly behind the man and Tom felt another wave of guilt flood over him. He had stowed away on board that plane with the intention of making Landry and his people pay for the deaths of billions. But they weren't just a bunch of faceless bureaucrats and scientists. They were real people, and many of them probably never had a clue as to why they were being asked to pack a bag and go to a remote air base until it was all over. He tried to think back but couldn't recall much about Greg's kids except that there were two of them.

If Landry's people had not quarantined him then those kids might have been infected if he was a carrier, and Tom had enough proof already that immunity didn't necessarily run in families. Abby and her son Peter were the only exceptions he'd recalled seeing so far.

Thoughts of the small group of survivors made him feel strangely homesick. Against his better judgment he had come to like them, and care for them. They had come for him when he was in danger, and he had gone back to the mine to free Greg and that kid even though he owed them nothing. His thoughts returned to the trial where Greg had sat on the jury and voted him guilty. They hadn't even needed to coerce him and that hurt because everything Tom had done had been to protect their small group. Dexter would have kept on coming after them with or without Samantha Willis backing him.

So why had he gone back for Greg after being betrayed? It hadn't been for revenge and he hadn't needed to force himself to return. In fact, he'd never even considered leaving Greg to rot in that mine no matter what Greg had said and done against him. And seeing those mine guards about to string him up in front of the others had made something inside of Tom snap. It didn't make any sense.

The anger hadn't dissipated afterwards, and Tom could recall feeling irritable even before Greg went off with Abby to check out his family's home. He had blamed the anger on Anya making eyes at that commune chick but the more he thought about it, the more he realized that he'd done and said a lot of nasty things simply to antagonize Greg, to push the man away.

"Oh fuck," he murmured. He hadn't fallen in love with a lesbian; he had fallen in love with a straight guy. No wonder his head was so completely fucked up.

An hour passed by while he flayed himself mentally for his stupidity. Landry's people came for him and, hours later, he was back at the airstrip near the Pharmaceutical laboratory, dressed in fresh clothing and with a couple of bandage changes and some food and water in a rucksack. They left him his gun too but only dropped the clips onto the runway from the open hatch as the plane began its take off. The door locked quickly and the plane was in the air and banking away long before he reached the first clip and slammed it home.

He had a choice now. He didn't have to follow Landry's orders. He could walk away and find some other group, or go off alone. Tom closed his eyes in frustration because he was standing once more in the dock of a Kangaroo Court, pretending that the outcome of this personal conflict was still under debate when, in truth, he had made his choice long before today. He had made it on the day he went back to the mine to rescue Greg when he should have kept on running and never looked back.

His fingers brushed the top pocket of his jacket and he pulled out a hastily scrawled note and a recent photograph of two smiling children; Greg's children. The older one had her dad's eyes and smile.

God help him but Tom wanted to see those eyes and that smile again.

It had only been a few days since he stowed on board the plane so the others were probably still looking for him. The only known clue to his whereabouts was probably hidden away in the Pharmaceutical laboratory, so they would have stayed close by, perhaps taken advantage of the empty caravans in that park. He was a fool, but he took a deep breath and started onto the road leading back towards the caravan site.

END


End file.
